Instead of refusing to be part of the odious infomercial (Ford did not take questions following his confession-cum-campaign-speech), the chosen reporters dutifully filed into the mayor’s office — some of them tweeting out excuses for the mayor’s mean-spirited censure.

An apologetic Toronto Mayor Rob Ford returns to work after two months of substance rehabilitation. Rough Cut (no reporter narration).

In a contemptible scene outside the mayor’s office 30 minutes before the staged event, Ford’s bouncer-driver read off the list of reporters Ford picked for his redemption newser.

So much for returning from rehab a changed man. What we got is the same menacing magistrate. What it felt like was something from a fascist state.

Out: Now Magazine. The Canadian Press. The Mirror newspapers, read by hundreds of thousands each week. And numerous reporters, aghast at the exclusion.

In barring the Metroland newspapers, Ford banned David Nickle, the president of the city hall press gallery.

So, did his colleagues rally around him and refuse to enter the news conference without the resident leader, a journalist who has occupied a rented city hall office since 1998? (Dale tried to mount a boycott of the event but his efforts crash-landed at home and found few takers in newsrooms around town.)

The Star’s managing editor, Jane Davenport, explains this paper’s position thus: “We considered participating in a boycott. But we felt in view of our aggressive coverage of the mayor in recent months, it would have been an inappropriate and untrue sign of bias towards Rob Ford to lead one.”

I didn’t call the other media that attended. Imagine the earnest excuses they’d offer — some of them genuine, all changing nothing about Monday. I reject my paper’s explanation; I would reject other media’s as well.

The entire Ford saga is an indictment of the majority of our media. For example, how many media arrows has the Star endured over Ford — only to be proven correct time and time again? The impact is prior restraint, a form of self-censure media engage in, often unnecessarily. In general, the media has been too deferential, until the evidence is beyond overwhelming.

What we have representing the once noble profession are many “content providers” and few journalists. Too many care not a whit about principle, journalistic ethics; some prominently play propagandist and mayor cheerleader.

Makes you sick — especially at a time when the industry is buffeted on all sides, jobs disappearing like the dodo bird, reporters more willing to blur lines of impartiality, shilling for one political side or the other.

I’ve been a member of the city hall press gallery since the late 1980s. The measure of a great society is its willingness to tolerate the strong opinions of the press. I’ve butted heads with mayors like Art Eggleton, Barbara Hall, Mel Lastman and David Miller. None of them sought to bar reporters from a news conferences. None went on the offensive, daily, pointedly, to identify specific journalists or media outlets and accuse same of printing or airing falsehoods, knowing full well that every word written was correct and every denial from the mayor an utter fabrication.

The city hall press corps knows this. But they conveniently sweep it aside. The excuse? Their news directors or editors want the item covered so they have to go, the beat reporters say. Nonsense.

Grow some spine, cowards.

Even the city’s communication department did not stand by and watch Monday’s abomination in silence. “From a city point of view, this is not reflective of the approach … we have and value with members of the media, particularly our colleagues in the city hall press gallery,” a spokesperson said.

Early in his term, Ford left some media off the list of those getting official news releases from the mayor’s office. Some on the list wouldn’t sign a letter voicing the gallery’s contempt for this suppression.

Monday, Ford went further and barred certain media from an important news conference.

Tomorrow? What if he decides no black reporters will be allowed at the next news conference? Or no women? Would the content providers merrily go without a sign of protest? Would they not challenge their editors or news directors?

And if their editors forced them to go to that news conference, would they not do something to register their disgust — stand in front of the television cameras to interrupt the live images; or unplug the digital recorders of the radio guys; shout out questions, as Daniel Dale did Monday, to register a signal that this is not business as usual; anything to show outrage?

I can’t say for certain they would. And that is most painful.

We have fallen a long way as journalists and it is shameful.

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